Gunning & District Historical Society

Two treadle sewing machines with a Touch of Old World Charm This post covers two nineteenth-century sewing machines displayed in “A Touch of Old World Charm” exhibition in the folk museum in Pye Cottage, Gunning, New South Wales.  They are the Singer Sphinx and the Beale. Two hand-operated machines donated to Gunning and District Historical Society were described in an earlier blog, and a treadle machine made in 1910 will feature in a later post. A foreign country? “ The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. ” is the opening sentence of L P Hartley's The Go-Between  (1953). But those words were first spoken by the writer’s friend in a 1949 lecture. (1.) Obtaining clothes was undoubtedly different in rural New South Wales in the late nineteenth to today’s easy shopping. Of course, then there was a local store or two and mail-order from the big city, for a price, for ready-made clothes. When the train line was extended from Goulburn to Gunning in 1875, ...

"A Touch of Old World Charm" by Rosemary Spiller Take a step back through time with a display of items from bygone days, that connects us to our history. From fashion, fripperies and fancies to paintings, portraits and photographs of who they were and how they lived. Come visit us at Pye Cottage Museum, where stories unfold and history comes alive. Pye Cottage Museum and the new exhibition The cottage was built close to the road from Gunning, just before Dalton village, by 1867, for the Savage family. Named for the family which donated it, the cottage was moved to 121 Yass Street Gunning, where it opened in September 1974 as Pye Cottage “Folk” Museum. Local people made donations of items to illustrate local personalities and features of agricultural life c 1860-1945. Some donations were made anonymously, sometimes under cover of darkness!  Much of the clothing in the exhibition , including the wedding dress, was donated by Nancy Foord, daughter of the featured wedding couple,...

Can you visualise a bear in there?  Detail of baby blankets donated by Lindy Clancy with her beloved cot. Lindy Clancy has added  to the history of her recent donations to the Pye Cottage Museum, Yass Street, Gunning:   'The birthing cot and  spinning wheel… were located at John and Eyvonne Clancy’s residence (originally Dr Barbour’s home) in Biala Street. The cot... was very special to me and was certainly admired by all visitors to our home who sighted and marvelled at this wonderful piece of furniture – it certainly was a one of a kind.  It was extremely important to me to ensure that the cot remained in the township of Gunning… I was so delighted when Keith Brown made contact prior to the new owners taking up residence so that we could transfer this very “unique cot” to its rightful place... The Spinning Wheel I think a lot of local residents would have been safely placed in its care during their arrival into the world at “Alla...

The birthing cot donated by Lyndell Whittaker Photo: Ann Darbyshire Lyndell Whittaker, daughter of the late John and Eyvonne Clancy, has graciously donated to the Gunning & District Historical Society, a birthing cot that would have been utilised for many local citizens immediately after their birth in Matron Bertha Bush’s private maternity hospital “Allawah” in Biala Street, Gunning. There was the possibility raised by John Clancy himself that this birthing cot may have been transferred from the earlier maternity hospital “Templeton” on the Collector Road, Gunning, operated by Nurse Beatrice Maud Caldwell. Nurse Bush's advertisement, note the phone number! Photo: Ann Darbyshire “Allawah” had been built by Con and Fanny Lucilla Dowling of “Bloomfield” in 1929 and Matron Bush leased “Allawah” from them. Their son Noel Dowling recalled several years ago that the annual rental was £58.10/- (or 58 pounds and ten shillings). That same year, 1929, Dr Barbour built ...